Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

[Berkut]

CC.  looked over that, and it appears that in regards to this topic, it is still not acceptable to assist someone in taking their life:

3.4 Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Euthanasia is a deliberate act undertaken by a person with the intention of ending the life of another person to relieve that person's suffering where that act is the cause of death.10 Euthanasia is prohibited under the Canadian Criminal Code.

Assisted suicide is the act of intentionally killing oneself with the assistance of another who provides the knowledge, means, or both.11 Under the Criminal Code, counselling, aiding or abetting suicide is an offence, and the consent of the deceased to his or her own death does not prevent criminal liability from attaching to the person who assisted in bringing about the death.

None of this is to suggest that physicians should refrain from the aggressive management of a patient's pain and symptoms, as appropriate.

Yeah, that is the part that is no longer applicable because of the SCC case.  Now doctors are only left with the informed consent guidance.  Everyone recognizes that is not sufficient but it at least emphasizes the point you were making.

Well, this is just another example of how Canadians only pay lip service to liberty then!

:barf:

[crazy canuck]

just like the child, the mentally ill are not capable of understanding the consequences of their actions,

You appear to have a cartoonish understanding of mental illness.

Yeah a very small percentage of mentally ill people are actually incapable of making an informed decision. The thing is depression doesnt give you "suicidal thoughts" - it makes your life so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide. How is it different, then, from suffering from physical pain so strong, your life is so unbearable, you start contemplating suicide?

Please go back and re-read the facts of this case.  The reason given for allowing her to die is precisely because her depression was giving her suicidal thoughts.

[The Brain]

I haven't voted in the poll yet. I have a question: in Sweden if you're brain dead you're legally dead, but I take it that's not the case in the US?

[Razgovory]

I'm the guy who voted against it in all cases.

[crazy canuck]

I haven't voted in the poll yet. I have a question: in Sweden if you're brain dead you're legally dead, but I take it that's not the case in the US?

We all hope the brain isn't dead. 

[The Brain]

Warms the old heart it does.

[dps]

I'm the guy who voted against it in all cases.

So did I.  It's all bullshit anyway--there's no such thing as death with dignity.  You can face death with dignity, but death itself isn't dignified.

[alfred russel]

After reading this thread i want to be euthenized. Along with the rest of humanity.

[Martinus]

I haven't voted in the poll yet. I have a question: in Sweden if you're brain dead you're legally dead, but I take it that's not the case in the US?

If that was the case the GOP would be in deep trouble. *babading* 

[katmai]

I know who I'd like to smother with a pillow.

*glances at Tim*

Get in line

[11B4V]

Fucked up

http://europe.newsweek.com/healthy-24-year-old-granted-right-die-belgium-329504

Healthy 24-year-old granted right to die in Belgium

By Eilish O'Gara  6/29/15 at 7:17 PM

Filed Under: Health   



Doctors in Belgium are granting a 24-year-old woman who is suffering from depression but is otherwise healthy the right to die as she qualifies for euthanasia under the Belgian law, even though she does not have a terminal or life-threatening illness.

The 24-year-old woman, known simply as Laura, has been given the go-ahead by health professionals in Belgium to receive a lethal injection after spending both her childhood and adult life suffering from "suicidal thoughts", she told local Belgian media.

Laura has been a patient of a psychiatric institution since the age of 21 and says she has previously tried to kill herself on several occasions. She told journalists: "Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful." The date of Laura's death is yet to be decided.

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Belgium passed a law to legalise euthanasia in 2002, the second country in the world to do so after the Netherlands. The law states that Belgian doctors can "help patients" to end their lives if they freely express a wish to die because they are suffering from intractable and unbearable pain.

Dr Marc Van Hoey, a general practitioner and president of the Right to Die Association in northern Belgium, is a vocal supporter of the legislation. Van Hoey told the Independent newspaper that he believes that sometimes euthanasia is the kindest option. "I've seen quite a lot of persons dying in - how do you say in proper English - agony?" Van Hoey said. "I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for."

Over the past few years there has been a sharp increase in the number of euthanasia cases in Belgium. In 2013, there were 1,807 deaths recorded compared with 1,432 in 2012. More than half of last year's cases were patients aged 70 and over but there are increasing numbers of young people requesting to die legally, with the majority citing depression as their "intractable and unbearable pain."

However, not everyone is in favour of the law. Carine Brochier, a project manager with the Brussels-based European Institute of Bioethics, tells Newsweek that she believes too many people are dying as a result of Belgium's liberalised euthanasia laws.

She argues that many people who experience psychological suffering and treatable mental illnesses may be wrongly given the go ahead for euthanasia because "there is absolutely no way for healthcare professionals to measure another person's mental suffering to decide if they should receive euthanasia."

"Euthanasia is not the answer to all human suffering," Brochier continues. "We need to develop better palliative care for people," something she believes Belgium is not currently doing.

Earlier this year in February, the parliament in Belgium passed a bill also allowing euthanasia for terminally ill children without any age limit, by 86 votes to 44. The vote makes it the first country in the world to have legalised euthanasia without an age limit.

In the Netherlands, the first country to legalize euthanasia, sick children are allowed to request it, but only if they are 12 years or older.

As of June 2015, euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia and Luxembourg.

This is fucking stupid.

[The Brain]

You're thinking of sex with an average person.

[Fate]

I hope Belgium required that she at least exhaust all evidence based treatment regimens prior to permitting euthanasia. I'd be more okay with this if she was truly refractory to antidepressants, antipsychotics, and electroconvulsive therapy. If modern medicine has nothing to offer you and you're severly debilitated by depression maybe there can be a place for a right to die. The article does not tell us much about her psychiatric history.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I hope Belgium required that she at least exhaust all evidence based treatment regimens prior to permitting euthanasia. I'd be more okay with this if she was truly refractory to antidepressants, antipsychotics, and electroconvulsive therapy. If modern medicine has nothing to offer you and you're severly debilitated by depression maybe there can be a place for a right to die. The article does not tell us much about her psychiatric history.

It's not like she went to the doctor one day and asked for a lethal prescription and the next day she's residing between six planks/in one urn. 
It'll have taken a while between the initial request and the actual deed because the law required doctors to make sure that the patient is really really really certain of what the
request means (given that the doctors are responsible and may end up in court or worse in case of irregularities of any kind). At which point doctors may still decide to refuse the request (the law grants to people the right to request euthanasia, not the right to actually get it).

The article -obviously- doesn't divulge enough info (and I doubt the Original article in Het Nieuwsblad doesn't either) about het medical history. For obvious reasons.

[Rex Francorum]

I am amazed that 50% of the people here responded positively to this statement:

I believe people should be able to choose to euthanized for any reason.

Anyone? For any reason? Seriously?


So if some 18 year strolls into their doctors office and says "I want to kill myself because my cat died" the doctor should just write her up a prescription, have a nice day?


ANY REASON?

I think so. People are free to do what they want with their body, including to terminate themselves, even if the reason is stupid.